


Always Beside You

by SkyEverett



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Despair, F/M, Falling In Love, Grief/Mourning, Heaven, Hopeful Ending, Loss, True Love, Wings of Freedom, rivetra, survey corps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 04:19:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4249038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyEverett/pseuds/SkyEverett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Petra knew that one day she would die, but she had no idea that it would be this hard to let go...Rivetra.</p><p>These are two Rivetra fanfics I wrote.  They do work kind of like two chapters, but I wrote them as separate stories before I decided, "Hey, these two sound good together!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Still Here

The last thing Petra remembered was being wrapped in a thick brown blanket and placed in the back of a cart.  Her spine hurt so much, but after a while the pain faded and she was able to sit up.  No one took any notice; their heads were bowed and their faces were filled with despair for the lost ones outside the walls.    
  
Petra looked up and caught sight of the captain up in front guiding one of the horses.  A man that was soon recognized as her father was speaking to him.  She couldn’t see the captain’s face, but he was the same as the other soldiers: his head was bowed and he wasn’t speaking.  Petra wanted to tell her father to stop talking, but she wasn’t close enough.  Then she realized what a mess she was.  Her face was covered in blood, and so was most of her back.  She might not be in a good state to speak to her father.  So she lay back down and covered herself with the blanket.  


* * *

A steady rain was falling once the Corps made it back to their headquarters.  Petra climbed out of the cart in search for a restroom—all this blood was beginning to get in her way.  She climbed into the showers and let the dried blood free itself from her hair and wash down the drain.  She scrubbed the blood from her uniform, put it back on, and went to make the captain some coffee.  
  
Once she made the coffee, she walked up to his room and knocked on the door.  
“Heichou, I made your coffee!”  
  
No answer.  
  
“Heichou?”  Petra slowly opened the door.  The room was empty.  
  
 _Oh well,_ thought Petra.   _I’ll just leave it here and be on my way._  But just as she was about to leave, the captain came in and slammed the door.  Petra stumbled back at the loudness of it.  Usually, whenever the captain did that, he did not want to be interrupted by _anything._  Petra slowly tried to make her way to the door, but the sight of him undressing stopped her.    
  
The captain took off his Survey Corps jacket, his 3D Maneuver Gear, and his belt, folded them and placed them neatly inside his closet.  Then, in an action that surprised Petra even more so than the door slamming, he grasped his cravat—Petra remembered fixing it for him the day they set out—and yanked it out, throwing it onto his bed where it lay, crumpled, against the neat folds of his bedspread, a white attention-grabber against the blankness of his otherwise clean bedroom.  The very sight of it like that made Petra want to cry, but for some reason, she didn’t know why.  
  
But what the captain did next was probably the most surprising thing of all.    
  
There was a bulky object covered with a maroon cloth in a corner near his window, and Petra and the others had been given orders to never touch it.  Now the captain pulled the cloth off, and Petra saw it for what it was: a small, but beautiful piano.  She could see by the polished wood that the captain cared for this instrument very much.  The captain pulled his chair from his desk in front of it, opened the piano, brushed the dust off of a few white keys, and began to play.  
  
The tune he chose was beautiful, but so melancholy it made Petra want to run up and hug him.  She knew what the captain’s reaction would be, though; he would push her away and brush himself off.  
  
The rain outside grew louder as thunder rumbled, but the captain seemed unfazed by it.   _Heichou seems very focused, and the rain’s getting rather loud.  I might be able to make my escape now, since he hasn’t seen me yet._  And Petra would have been able to, but something made her stop.  
  
A tear fell from the captain’s eye.  
  
His hands began to shake.  
  
He was looking at the coffee Petra had left him.  
  
With one arm, he swept the mug from the table.  The ceramic shattered on the floor and coffee flew everywhere.  The captain winced—one of the pieces had grazed his finger.    
  
“Heichou!” screamed Petra, shocked.  She rushed to his side, but he took no notice of her.  He was looking at something in his hand.  At a closer look, she realized it was a Survey Corps badge.  It looked like it had been torn from someone’s jacket.  
  
Despite her concern for the captain, Petra managed a smile.  It was rather heartwarming to know that the captain cared about those who had passed on.  
  
“Petra…” he whispered.  
  
“Yes, Heichou?” she answered.  He didn’t speak; he only tightened his grip on the Survey Corps badge.  A terrible thought suddenly occurred to Petra, one that seemed to shake the earth more than a Titan’s footsteps.  She looked down to examine her jacket.  
  
 _Her breast badge was missing._  She touched the place where it should be and felt the absence of something incredibly important… _the beating of her own heart._  
  
The reality and horror of what happened to her came crashing down on her like a wave of grief.  It was all so clear now: how quickly the pain in her spine had faded when she had woken up inside the cart, how no one took any notice of her when she walked about headquarters, and why the captain…why Levi… _couldn’t see her…_   
  
“Oh no…!”  Petra put her hands to her face as tears filled her eyes.  How could this happen?  How could she die at such an important time?  She felt like they were so close…since they had Eren, they were closer than ever to finding out about the titans’ origin and existence…and…  
  
 _…and she could have married Levi._  
  
Petra took a deep breath and reached out to wipe Levi’s tears away.  Feeling a little more daring, she wrapped her arms around him and felt how warm he was.   It felt comforting.    
  
 _If only he could embrace me too._  
  
But after fooling herself for about half an hour, Petra had learned that it only hurts more to pretend.  So she kissed Levi on the forehead and whispered a goodbye.  
  
Then she walked out of his room without looking back.  


* * *

Levi felt a pocket of warm air wrap around him as he clutched his love’s badge.  It felt like she was embracing him, so he did not shake it off, but after about five minutes the feeling disappeared, and he felt more alone than ever.  He set the badge aside and continued playing, but he could not shake the fact that he had heard something, like a whisper, riding on the wind…  
  
 _“Goodbye, Captain Levi.  I love you, and you will always be in my heart.”_


	2. Faith in Levi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Petra meets Isabel and Farlan. Levi trusted her enough to tell her about them.

“U…um…hello?”  
  
Petra found herself standing on a gigantic cliff overlooking the world outside the walls.  The moment she had accepted her fate—the moment she had stepped out of the captain’s room—she had found herself here.  She knew that Eld, Gunther, and Auroro had gone on ahead, leaving her to try to figure this one out herself.   _Thanks a lot, guys._  
  
The cliff ended in a sheer, dizzying drop, one higher than the walls themselves.  She stood at the edge of this cliff, wondering what she was supposed to do.   _Am I supposed to climb down?  Is this some kind of trick?_  
  
“Hey!  You lost?”  
  
Petra whirled around.  Two Survey Corps soldiers stood behind her.  The boy had dirty blond hair and pale blue eyes, and the girl had red hair in pigtails and eager green eyes.  She waved.  
  
Petra hesitantly waved back, wondering what these two were doing here, but then—almost imperceptibly—she noticed the pair of dark blue and white wings that they both had on their backs: true wings of freedom.  These two must have been Survey Corps soldiers a long time ago.  
  
“Were you with the other three men that passed through here recently?” asked the blond-haired one.    
  
“Yes,” answered Petra.  “Where are they?”  
  
“Out there!” answered the redhead, gesturing to the horizon.  “Beyond the walls!  Free from threat!  Free forever!”  
  
“Free…forever?” Petra looked out towards the setting sun, dyed red for the blood of her lost comrades.  “But…what about the others…?”  
  
“You mean the comrades that are still fighting?” said the boy.  “Well…you can send them your strength.  Fly beside them when they ride off to battle.  Support them.  Is there a certain person you still want to protect?”  
  
“My leader…Captain Levi.  I was going to marry him when all of this was over.”  
  
At this, the two became silent.  They looked at her with what looked like admiration, but they seemed to be looking straight to her soul, bare as it was now.  Then the girl walked up to her silently.  For what seemed like an eternity, the two stood face to face, then the girl pulled Petra into an embrace.  
  
“I see…you could have made Big Bro so happy.”  
  
“Big…Bro?” asked Petra hesitantly.  “You don’t mean…!”  
  
“You fly down there,” said the boy.  “and tell Levi that Farlan and Isabel are still watching out for him, and that no matter how many times he doubts his trust in others…we’re still with him.”  
  
“Yeah!  It wasn’t his fault, never was!” said the girl, stepping away and grinning.  “Big Bro’s always been the strongest one of all!”  
  
“Trust him…”  Petra looked down from the cliff, and suddenly it didn’t seem like such a long fall.  “How am I going to get down there?”  
  
“Trust your wings to carry you,” answered Farlan.  “Because the Survey Corps…are all about believing in yourself, but also believing in others and trusting them with your life.  When you’ve accomplished that, you can do anything.”  
  
“Big Bro wants to trust everyone,” said Isabel, “but every time he decides to leave, someone ends up getting hurt.  That’s not his fault.”  
  
“No,” Petra agreed.  “It’s not.”  Petra turned to face the cliff and the endless, beautiful plains, and not one titan dared to show its face.  Without the ruins and the giant footprints that usually lined the green fields, they place looked almost peaceful.  
  
But Petra had seen hell.  And now that she was given another chance, she wasn’t going to leave her love behind to perish in it again.  
  
So she spread her wings and jumped off the cliff—behind her she felt hundreds of others do the same—and they soared as one formation, one unit…  
  
…one army of reluctant heroes.


End file.
